1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a charging connector and, particularly, to a charging connecter to be fitted into a vehicle-side inlet provided in a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, due to improvement of environmental consciousness, an electric vehicle (e.g., electric vehicle (EV) and a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV)) is being eagerly promoted which mounts an accumulator battery (hereinafter, referred to as “battery”) and is capable of running by a motor driven by an electric power of the battery. As infrastructure development for such a vehicle, a charging device has been developed. With reference to FIG. 14, an example of charging connectors at a charging device side will be described.
As illustrated in FIG. 14, a charging connector 100 includes a connector case 110 storing a connector fitting portion 111 fitting into a vehicle-side inlet (not shown), a plurality of swinging members 120A, 120B formed with protruding claws 121A, 121B at a tip end of the charging connector 100 and locking pieces 122A, 122B at a backend thereof, and a release lever 130 having locking surfaces 131, 132 on which locking pieces 122A, 122B are locked together, respectively.
The swinging members 120A, 120B are urged by a spring 123B (the other spring is not shown) in a locking direction of the locking pieces 122A, 122B on the locking surfaces 131, 132, respectively. Further, the release lever 130 is urged by a spring 133 to a start position side of a push-in operation.
When such a charging connector 100 is inserted into the vehicle-side inlet, the protruding claw 121A of one swinging member 120A comes into contact with an inner circumferential surface of the vehicle-side inlet to be pushed into a notch (not shown) formed on an outer circumferential surface of the connector fitting portion 111. When the charging connector 100 is inserted most inside the vehicle-side inlet (i.e., becomes in a completely fitted state), the protruding claw 121A of the one swinging member 120A protrudes from the notch (not shown) of the connector fitting portion 111 to be locked into a recessed portion (not shown) provided on the inner circumferential surface of the vehicle-side inlet, so that the charging connector 100 is locked to the vehicle-side inlet. At this point, the protruding claw 121B of the other swinging member 120B abuts on a tip end surface of the vehicle-side inlet to be pushed into the notch (not shown) of the connector fitting portion 111, and then detects the completely fitted state of the charging connector 100.
On the other hand, when the charging connector 100 is removed from the vehicle-side inlet after power is supplied to the battery, the release lever 130 is operated to be pushed in and, first, a tip end portion 134 of the release lever 130 abuts on one locking piece 122A to push up the one swinging member 120A. With this arrangement, the protruding claws 121A, 121B of the swinging members 120A, 120B respectively are pushed into the notch of the connector fitting portion 111 (not shown), so that the charging connector 100 can be removed from the vehicle-side inlet. At this point, since the locking pieces 122A, 122B are locked on the locking surfaces 131, 132 respectively, the release lever 130 is blocked from moving to the start position side of the push-in operation.